Inside Tom Thibodeau’s game-defining decision that let things slip away from Knicks

For 2 ¹/₂ minutes of the most crucial part of this game, Jalen Brunson wasn’t on the court.

And for most of that time, Brunson stood at the scorer’s table — side-by-side with Josh Hart — waiting to check in as Tom Thibodeau clutched too long to his final timeout.

It was the defining decision of Tuesday’s 106-103 Knicks defeat to the Pistons, confounding as it unfolded as silence hit the Garden crowd. Thibodeau explained it afterwards as, simply, “coach’s decision.”